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Aberdeen CVB reports visitor gains, outlines 2024 marketing and Hotel Alliance support
Summary
The Aberdeen Convention & Visitors Bureau presented 2024 marketing results to the City Council, reporting increases in occupancy and website traffic, summarizing ad campaigns and Hotel Alliance event funding, and describing tools used to analyze visitor origins.
Casey Weismantle, a representative of the Aberdeen Convention & Visitors Bureau, told the City Council on March 24 that 2024 brought measurable gains in visitor activity and online engagement and described how the CVB and its partners market the city.
Weismantle said the bureau’s promotional work focused on a regional three-state market for leisure visitors and a nationwide approach for hunting marketing. "Our goal is to try to refill that triple b budget," he said, referring to the city’s promotional tax fund. He described the occupancy fee as "a $2 fee that's added to a hotel stay anytime a visitor travels to Aberdeen area and rents a hotel room." He attributed a 4.53% increase in the occupancy fee receipts in 2024 compared with 2023 to higher visitor traffic.
The update included counts and performance metrics for the bureau’s 2024 campaigns: 25 print campaigns, four digital campaigns, three video campaigns, six radio campaigns and 29 email marketing campaigns; social platforms remained important, with Facebook delivering the largest reach. The CVB’s main website registered about 469,000 page views in 2024; the hunting subsite had roughly 52,000 users. Weismantle also gave specific marketing-performance figures: a 38% open rate on hunting email campaigns and a 2.2% click-through rate, and cited a widely viewed “MeatEater” video with about 489,000 impressions.
Weismantle described the Aberdeen Hotel Alliance as a separate industry group that "runs their own budget" and pays event sponsorships and advertising that amplify the CVB’s work. He said in 2024 the Hotel Alliance paid about $79,000 in event sponsorships and roughly $113,000 in advertising on Aberdeen’s behalf. The alliance, he said, aims to seed events with three- to five-year sponsorships to help them become self-sustaining.
Council members asked about audience analytics. Weismantle said the CVB and partner organizations are testing Placer.ai and have run demos; full access was not yet purchased but preliminary reports are available. "We look at the full visitation, which would include Aberdeen residents, and then we also annex out the Aberdeen residents and look at visitors that are 50 miles away and farther," he said, describing heat maps and origin/destination reports used to plan outreach and event scheduling.
Council members praised the CVB’s year and noted early 2025 occupancy numbers were strong. Several council members and the mayor thanked the CVB for coordination during recent tournaments and events.
The bureau asked event organizers to submit listings at aberdeenareaevents.com for free promotion; Weismantle said the CVB and several local partners pull event information from that calendar for radio, social and local marketing.
Ending: The council did not take action on the presentation; it served as an informational briefing and concluded with council questions about analytics and partnership funding.
